FLOrlp - land parcel information online for farmers and administration

Every year, approx. 20,000 agricultural enterprises in the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate apply for area-related subsidies. To support the process of subsidy application, the state's Ministry of Economy, Transportation, Agriculture, and Viniculture, in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering, developed the geographical information system FLOrlp1. FLOrlp grants farmers and administrative offices online access to the state's geographic and alphanumeric data relevant for the funding process. It thus implements one of the requirements in the EU regulation concerning the introduction of an Integrated Administrative Control System (IACS; German: "INVEKOS"). This article describes how the cooperation between a public agency and a research partner resulted in a task-oriented solution that not only provides economic and strategic benefits for all stakeholders, but also meets the Ministry's high architectural demands with respect to security, performance and future development.